The Story Unravels: Cui Xinming explains The Bewitched Years

“In [The Bewitched Years], the group of patients have no individualities, no values and no purpose in life. The weasel, a demonic creature in traditional Chinese folk tales, plays the role of a mastermind of wicked influences such as desire for money and pleasure. These decadent values from our society have been deeply embedded into our roots and unconscious long ago. In the darkness, the weasel creates a red light outside the room, representing false hope and illusion of eternal wealth and prosperity. The group of patients, who are recklessly attracted to greed and the empty pursuit of pleasure—hence the red light—are untouched by their surroundings, a wrecked and shattered room, mimicking the darkness in our corrupted society.”— Cui Xinming